WolfQuest

What do you think is the ultimate apex predator of Yellowstone?

This is hard, but I can eliminate all but three in my opinion, the mountain lion, wolves, and the grizzly. The mountain lion is dominated by the wolves at the carcass so I have to eliminate them. Grizzlies can dominate wolves at the carcass depending on the size of the pack. In Yellowstone wolves bring down prey from moose to voles so I think wolves are the apex predator because they prey on such a wide range of animals while grizzly don't control the prey population as much as the wolves, so the wolves I believe are the apex predators of Yellowstone.

What makes this question confusing is that mountain lions have killed grizzlys more than grizzly bears have killed mountain lions. wolves typically dominate cougars,however grizzly typically dominate wolves. this makes the question kind of like a rock paper, sissors question, making the choice a hard one

If I could, I’d vote a balance of Grizzly Bears, Mountain Lions, and Wolves. I don’t think that there is any one apex predator. They all dominate the Yellowstone ecosystem according to their unique strengths and weaknesses. One could judge based off of physical prowess, prey diversity, or success at a kill. The top three in my opinion would be the Grizzly, the Mountain Lion, and the Wolf. But that’s just me.

DaniBeez wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 01, 2019 3:48 pm

It is interesting that wolf is the only pack animal on the list; the others are primarily solitary animals. It reminds me of that saying, "the strength of the wolf is the pack". In other words, wolves operate best in their family groups vs. alone!

Very true. althogh lone wolves can take down healthy elk and moose (which i found suprising but its true) this complecates things and raises the question; how can a lone wolf take down large prey but not take down a grizzly

elkhunter123456 wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 01, 2019 4:20 pm

DaniBeez wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 01, 2019 3:48 pm

It is interesting that wolf is the only pack animal on the list; the others are primarily solitary animals. It reminds me of that saying, "the strength of the wolf is the pack". In other words, wolves operate best in their family groups vs. alone!

Very true. althogh lone wolves can take down healthy elk and moose (which i found suprising but its true) this complecates things and raises the question; how can a lone wolf take down large prey but not take down a grizzly

A lone wolf could probably take down a grizzly but they never do it because it is not worth the risk. When you take down an elk if you are a lone wolf you have food for about a week along with replenishing your fat reserves but if you kill a grizzly the meat is not that nutritious and the bear is way more aggressive than an elk which would lead to a higher chance of injury and in yellowstone there is such a high ungulate abundance that it isn't worth it to kill a grizzly. While in the arctic wolves will eat foxes even though the meat lacks nutrition because of low food abundance.

It's hard to debate if a wolf actually could take down a grizzly in a one-on-one, because I agree with you two that a real wolf would never choose to do so: way too dangerous and for no reward.

But, we do know that wolves have better hunting success when their prey choose to run vs. stand their ground and defend themselves. I imagine a grizzly would not run away from a single wolf pestering it, putting a wolf at an immediate disadvantage in a hypothetical fight. Whereas a wolf can potentially survive a kick to the skull from a hoof, I imagine a slash to the gut from a bear would be very dangerous, if not fatal!

I came across an article from almost exactly a year ago about Yellowstone wolf and grizzly interactions. They made an interesting analogy to mosquitoes:

yellowsontepark.com wrote:The grizzlies are more powerful, but the wolves are quicker and out-number the bear," says Smith. "It's always interesting to see the interaction between the two carnivores.

"It's almost like the wolves are the mosquitoes buzzing around the bear's head. Although individual mosquitoes can't overpower you, if there are enough of them, they'll win. That's sometimes what happens with grizzlies and wolves. The bear gets near the den, and wolves just annoy the heck out of him.

"The wolves in Yellowstone won't give up. They just constantly orbit around the bear. I've actually seen one wolf bite a bear in the butt when he turned around," says Smith.

[color=#fffbf]That supports the idea that wolves are only as good as their numbers when it comes to bears![/color]

Yeah off-topic but on a pup server we were doing the journey and a bear started following the pups and would not run though it was bit multiple times so I panicked a little and harassed "the heck out of it" to buy time for others to get away... so it was realistic huh? Nice hahaha.

Anyway, not to be only off-topic, I think the strongest/most dominant maybe would be the grizzly which often takes over the carcass and usually wont be simply killed by other predators. Even if enough crazy angry squirrels could kill it that wont make the squirrel the most dominant creature... you know.

Kinda makes me think of the African predators again which all are "on the top of the food chain" depending on the situation. I still think that with them too the lion is the strongest though it ofc can be harassed or even killed by other smaller predators with enough numbers.

Edit: I googled "yellowstone apex predator" and the results are just wolves, wolves, wolves... maybe my morning coffee thinking was wrong again hmm.

x1103 wrote:Yeah off-topic but on a pup server we were doing the journey and a bear started following the pups and would not run though it was bit multiple times so I panicked a little and harassed "the heck out of it" to buy time for others to get away... so it was realistic huh? Nice hahaha.

Lol, I guess it was! Nice connection to the game.

x1103 wrote:Edit: I googled "yellowstone apex predator" and the results are just wolves, wolves, wolves... maybe my morning coffee thinking was wrong again hmm.

I noticed that too, it's not just you! Just for fun, I totally cleared my web browsing history and searched "Yellowstone apex predator" into Chrome. I still got wolves dominating the search. The reintroduction of wolves into the park was a big event that got--and still continues to get--media attention, so that's my main theory as to why they dominate a web search about apex predators in the park.

But in terms of our forum discussion about the most dominant of them all, my vote is still brown bear or golden eagle. It's hard to pick one over the other without looking into it further!

(...And the act of clearing my browser history meant I had to re-write this entire response ^^;)

the outcome of wolf vs bear mostly depends on the animals mood from what i have read on these links. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf#Enem ... ompetitors
http://www.angelfire.com/ca5/magic1/Pred.html
https://www.newscientist.com/article/21 ... re-around/

so it seems like the 2 top predators are bear and wolf! lets call it a draw for now!

DaniBeez wrote:The reintroduction of wolves into the park was a big event that got--and still continues to get--media attention, so that's my main theory as to why they dominate a web search about apex predators in the park.

I thought of that too. Still it made me question my choice because it reminded me about how large scale impact wolves have to other species... would that wide impact make it more "dominant"? Hmm.

(I actually always write my answers on the phone's note app first to avoid rewriting, it's just terrible when you lose your text especially a long one!)

Yeah I suppose a draw is maybe the best outcome here. This is a cool poll it made me think... nature and the species' relationships are quite complicated making them even more interesting imo.